A jealous husband stabbed his wife five times in the back after she confessed to an affair with her salsa dance teacher, a jury was told yesterday. Robert Brindley, 65, who is 6ft tall, tried to kill his wife, Precious, who is 35 years younger than him and only 4ft 10in, the court heard.

Exeter crown court heard that Brindley met Precious in the Philippines in 1999 when they worked for the same company. She was a teenager but they lived together, moving to Teignmouth, Devon.

David Evans, prosecuting, said that Brindley, who denies attempted murder, was "jealous and possessive over his much younger wife".

Precious attended salsa classes and had an affair with the teacher. She told her husband and said she wanted to leave. Evans said she had been putting on make-up with her back to Brindley in June 2007 when he attacked her. "It may be that the defendant thought he had succeeded in killing her. She was bleeding profusely."

Evans said: "He stabbed her not once but five times, and he stabbed her in the back and without warning. His wife was someone much younger than him, someone who was leaving him and told him it was over between them. He was extremely upset and extremely jealous."

Brindley called for an ambulance, claiming his wife had fallen on a knife.

Later, in a police interview, he blamed his wife for "always being an angry person who went out with other men and humiliated and taunted him".

She said she was going "to look for guys to make babies with," he claimed. He lost his self-control. "I never wanted to kill my wife, I loved her so much, I just wanted to wake her up," he said.